Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity
L 199 c[April 27, 1904]1
J. M. + J. T. Dijon Carmel, April 27
"Surrexit Dominus vere, alleluia." 2
Monsieur l'Abbé,
"God is free from all save His love." This phrase, which I believe is by Msgr. Gay,3 gives much to my soul, particularly at this time of the Resurrection, when Christ, the victor over death, wants to remain our captive. And it seems to me this is how we can rise with Him: by walking through life "free from all save our love," our soul and heart fixed on God, repeating those words that Saint Catherine of Siena loved to say in the silence of her soul: "I am sought, I am loved." 4 This is what is true, all the rest is not. Oh! how good it would be, as you say,5 to live by this life of the Trinity that Jesus Christ came to bring us. He said so often that He was the Life, and that He came to give it to us in abundance.6 "He has taken all in God to Himself to become the source for all," as Père Vallée said to us one day in his strong language; then he added that all those who came close to Him had an "awareness of the vision He carried in His soul." 7 Since He still lives, why shouldn't we ask Him for the definitive light, that light of faith that makes saints, that so shone in the soul of Saint Catherine of Siena, whose Office we will have on Saturday and to whom I will be praying very specially for you since you are a part of her great religious family.8 In her Dialogues, she often repeats these words: "Open the eye of your soul in the light of faith." 9 Let us ask her, if you'd like, to draw our souls toward this God whom she so loved, so we too may be so well taken captive by Him that we might no longer leave His radiance. Is that not an anticipated Heaven? During this month of May I will be very united to you in the soul of the Virgin, for we will adore the Holy Trinity there. I very much like what you said to me about Mary in your letter, and since you live so close to her,10 I would ask you to pray to her a little for me. I too see my Carmelite life as this twofold vocation: "virgin-mother." 11 Virgin: espoused in faith by Christ; mother: saving souls, increasing the number of the adopted children of the Father, the co-heirs of Jesus Christ.12 Oh! how that magnifies the soul; it is like embracing the infinite!... I have prayed fervently for you and continue to do so every day, and I remain profoundly united to you in Him who is an immensity of love13 and who fills us to overflowing on all sides.
Sr. M. Eliz. of the Trinity r.c.i.
1 "Saturday," the feast of "Saint Catherine of Siena," and April 30 coincide in 1904.
2 "The Lord is truly risen, alleluia": invitatory for Matins on Easter. Cf. Lk 24:34.
3 The thought was well known in the Dijon Carmel. We come across it also in Mother Germaine's correspondence.
4 In this form, it is rather an expression used by P. Vallée in his "Discourse for the Feast of Saint John of the Cross," November 24, 1901 (which Elizabeth heard and perhaps reread).
5 In a letter.
6 Cf. Jn 10:10.
7 Elizabeth is quoting from memory the fifth morning sermon of the 1902 retreat: "Having taken to Himself the entire source, all of God that can be communicated to the created being.... He is the indispensable source for the very reason that He has taken all to Himself.... And in the light, in the power of Him who is from all eternity within the vision, and through Him, we are brought into that same vision, we touch it and live in it by faith."
8 André Chevignard was a Third Order Dominican.
9 This is what P. Vallée affirms in the third morning sermon of the 1902 retreat. In fact, Catherine says several times: "Open the eye of your understanding" (cf. Dialogue [Paris: Poussielgue Rusand, 1855], 1:2, 53, 302, etc.), and she explains in chapter 45 (pp. 110 111) that faith is the pupil of this eye. The quotation from P. Vallée does not prove that Elizabeth had read the Dialogue.
10 The seminary was at that time situated on rue Marey, close to the Cathedral and a few minutes away from the church of Notre-Dame, where the Virgin of Dijon, Our Lady of Good Hope, was venerated.
11 Virgin and Mother, like Mary. "Too" indicates that the idea came from the letter of her correspondent. But one can detect a reminiscence of Thérèse of Lisieux: "I am a virgin, O Jesus! Yet, what a mystery! / When I unite myself to you, I am the mother of souls" (Poem, "Jésus, mon Bien-Aimé, rappelle-toi!" ["Jesus, My Beloved, Remember"] (HA 343).
12 Cf. PN 13 and Gal 4:5-7.
13 First appearance of "immensity" in her letters. The expression "immensity of love" (which returns in L 228), like "Ocean" (which overflows on all sides), is found in Thérèse of Lisieux (HA 198 [SS 254]).
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